Empowerment, how do we embrace the ‘Other’

As I read a note from a friend of mine who is dealing with racism, I am struck by how humans can be lazy, fearful and/or power hungry when it comes to treating the ‘other’. The ‘other’ could embody race, age, sex, sexual and gender identification, beliefs, abilities, affiliations, appearances, speech or no speech, thought pattern… I could list them all, but that’s not the point. We are all others to everyone else. I am not you and you are not me. So, unless we magically create a world of cloned Me’s… we will always be an-other to someone else.

Kids often are the greatest filters for expressing humanity. I am not a child behavioralist or psychologist, but I can observe. Kids say it like it is… not out of laziness, fear or power, but out of truth. It is their reality and their way of understanding, to say it like it is. If we really listen to kids, we start to hear things that might be nuances to us but are the foundations of knowledge and emotions for them. Kids can’t grasp the big picture… so they home in on the details.

I find myself as an adult reacting to the laziness, fear and power grabbing in humanity in two ways: either I am angry because it is directed at me or I am perplexed as to why someone else is projecting it out. I must work on my own self to deal with the first one. The second one is harder and complex. It involves trying to dive into the minds, emotions and history of someone else. To me, that is a practice of insanity, because we will never really be able to completely go there. And yet, I am drawn in. How could I not be… with social media, the news, institutional norms and policies, politics… it all makes me tilt my head like a dog and trigger: WTF… why are they doing, saying, thinking that!

Then I wonder, maybe the answer or my approach should be that of a child. Look at the details, look at the nuances… change, effect and embrace that which is in front of me or that which is doable. Stay in the moment: right here, right now (thanks Mike Edwards).

I recently had a moment with my business that made my heart jump. My company supports pediatric therapist with communication tools. We rolled out a prototype card deck that illustrated kids doing yoga. I was speaking with a therapist friend today who is a beta-tester. She had distributed the set of 8 cards to her patients. She asked one of her kiddos what she thought of the cards. The little girl said she liked them, especially the pizza slice one. When my friend asked why, the little girl said, "because I like pizza and the girl in the picture looks like me". My friend asked, "what do you mean, she looks like you"? The therapist knew why but wanted to get her response. (Note: the card depicts a girl with long hair and a darker complexion. This little girl is light complexion with different hair.) The little girl replied... "because she is in a wheelchair. She is doing yoga, just like me!" It is the simple, yet oh so powerful representation of something common and necessary for this little girl that generated empowerment.

Seeing ourselves in a small instruction card is right here, right now. The ‘other’ is not someone to fear, someone to hold power over, someone we shouldn’t get to know. The ‘other’ is me. We all need the common and necessary things in our lives. Those may be different for each of us. However, what is the same is the need for being, feeling and accessing self-empowerment. Working on myself is step one. Reflecting, projecting and embracing empowerment upon each other, right here, right now, is step two.

Be well.

Paul